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Elijah: Filming 'Hobbit' Like 'Family Reunion'

By David Weiner 10:39 AM PDT, May 15, 2012

Elijah Wood returns to Middle-earth as Frodo Baggins in director Peter Jackson's highly anticipated prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, and the TRON: Uprising star tells ET that returning to New Zealand to shoot his scenes was like a "family reunion."

"It was a treat, man. It felt like I'd gone into a time machine and traveled back 10 years," says Elijah. "Many of the same crew members are working on The Hobbit. A number of the same cast has moved in reprising their roles. It's all being shot in New Zealand at the same stages, albeit there are more stages now and more trailers, and it all seems a little bit bigger, but it was like a family reunion. It was extraordinary."

He continues, "What was most surprising, in a way, was I think I expected it to feel really surreal, putting on the feet and the wig and the costume, but it ultimately felt normal. That was the craziest thing. I spent four years playing that character in that environment, and suddenly I was in Bag End again in that outfit and it just felt like another day at work, which was even more crazy."

Elijah took the time to talk about The Hobbit while promoting his slick, action-packed new Disney XD animated series TRON: Uprising. Taking place before the events of the big-screen TRON: Legacy, the visually striking series casts Elijah as Beck, a young program who becomes the unlikely leader of a revolution.

"[Beck must] accept that mantle of being – initially, reluctantly – the new TRON and being this renegade, to stop the tyranny of Clu," explains Elijah, saying of the TRON phenomenon, "It was this kind of element of pop culture; I've known about Light Cycles since I can remember, so it certainly made an impression on me, even though I didn't really didn't see the movie in full when I was younger."